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THE SPIRITUAL CARE OF A CHILD 



BOOKS BY 

CULTURE AND REFORM 

GIVING WHAT WE HAVE 

VICTORY OF OUR FAITH 

WHAT GOOD DOES WISHING DO? 

WHAT IS WORTH WHILE? 

THE SPIRITUAL CARE OF A CHILD 

Price 35 cents each by mail 
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 

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THE SPIRITUAL CARE 
OF A CHILD 



BY 



ANNA ROBERTSON BROWN LINDSAY, Ph.D. 

Attthoe op "What is Worth While?" "Cultuee and 

Repoem," "GrvmG What We Have," "What 

Good does WiSHma Do?" etc. 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



1^ 01 



l.rfTtAHYofCONGRESSg 
Vwo OuDles Received * 

SEP 27 I90r 

Copynrht Entry 

QUiS^ A XXC, NO: 

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COPY B. 






COPYBIGHT, 1907, 

By Thomas Y. Crowell & Company. 



Published, Septsmbeb, 1907. 



THE SPIRITUAL CARE OF A CHILD 

The upbringing of a child is one of the 
most ancient of arts, and yet to this day, in 
certain of its phases, it is the least mastered. 
The physical care of a child has been deeply 
studied, — a baby's food is now analyzed and 
measured to the fraction of an ounce. Its 
intellectual life has been provided for, — we 
have a progressive system of education from 
the kindergarten to the close of the graduate 
courses of a University. But when we ex- 
amine into the problem of the best spiritual 
care of a child, we find ourselves far from 
fixed guidance. 

Civilization itself, over-refined and sensuous, 

hampers both word and deed. There is a 

moral constriction in public sentiment, and 

aspiration is too often hampered by what 

others say. Our times are the best times of 

the world, and yet in many ways the spirit 

of the age is intensely hostile to a child's 

best welfare. 

5 



6 THE SPIRITUAL CAEE OF A CHILD 

Consider the general type of citizenship 
which we are to-day preparing in the Ameri- 
can nation. Do we not too often overlay 
childhood with impressions of a bitter struggle 
for wealth, fame, position, or material success, 
to the inevitable coarsening of temperament, 
and degradation of ideals ? Do we not under- 
mine fibre when we buy our children in- 
dolence and ease ? Do we not put toy pistols 
and noise for patriotism, and stories of mis- 
chievous children, who daily imagine new 
tricks, for the great and ancient heroisms of 
the race? Do we not apparently value reck- 
lessness instead of courage, competition instead 
of loving-kindness? Do we not put forth 
hasty impulses or soft-tongued sentiments for 
real convictions ? — careless parenthood for 
reasoned control ? — indifference for political 
and civic ardor? 

At the same time we are confronted, as a 
nation, with the gravest and most inspiring 
possibilities of history. Every impression in- 
fluences type. Will these conditions of child- 
hood result in the balanced temperament, the 
just outlook, the regal endowments necessary 



THE SPIRITUAL CABE OF A CHILD 7 

for spiritual control? The only right we 
have to bring children into the world, is to 
add to the spiritual force of the universe. 
Populations are not nations, mere creatures 
are not significant, and uninspired children 
are but a kind of spawn. 

Pertness and irreverence are our national 
disgrace. Thinking men and women are 
convinced that brilliant ability in the way of 
business does not necessarily make men or 
corporations honest, nor does public office 
make men incorruptible to private privilege ; 
professional standing in art or literature is 
not always accompanied by high moral char- 
acter ; and we are confronted, not only with 
conditions of labor among the poorer classes 
that are appalling, not only with luxury and 
idleness in the wealthier ranks, but by the 
reasons for these conditions, and by prob- 
lems which, reaching out to all classes, seem 
to concern the generic life of man. 

Even the scientific study and application 
of the psychology of childhood, valuable as 
it is, does not of itself produce strong char- 
acter. Parents, teachers, pastors, and all 



8 THE SPIRITUAL CABE OF A CHILD 

those interested in the higher development of 
children are beginning to ask : How can we 
meet modern civilization with weapons which 
shall guard our children from the darts of 
sin? How can we strengthen them for the 
physical strain of life, — for their private 
duties, and their public responsibilities ? How 
can we bring up our children in spiritual 
health ? — to that sane outlook over life which 
is not worn by worry, nor unbalanced by sor- 
row ; which is undiscouraged by difficulty, and 
unspoilt by victory; which can meet life with 
quiet nerves, a sense of humor, a sense of maj- 
esty, and a realization of spiritual opportunity ? 
Let us begin an old, and yet new pro- 
gramme. Let us believe that the relation of 
the soul to God is the most important thing 
in life. The foundations of the spiritual life 
lie deep in prayer and reverie. Leisure, cul- 
ture, and meditation have social uses, as well 
as the jumping hurry of doing. If we do 
truly thus believe, we shall plan our business, 
our professional interests, our household hours, 
our companionships, our reading, our amuse- 
ments, and our public service in the light of 



THE SPIRITUAL CABE OF A CHILD 9 

this belief, and shall not apparently try to in- 
voke, at one moment, the help of the divine 
spirit, and at another to breathe forth indiffer- 
ence, worldliness, or antagonism toward God. 
Can we lift our children higher than our own 
ideals ? Can we lift them at all, if we do not 
work out our ideals in some practical way ? 

Let us give our children a positive religious 
training. Let our religious teaching be defi- 
nite and continuous. If we wish to drive a 
nail into the wall, we do not say : Oh, let the 
wall alone. When those boards are older, the 
spike will go in of itself. Nor do we give it 
one or two desultory raps with a hammer, look- 
ing elsewhere as we pound. We choose the 
exact spot where the nail is to go, and with 
deliberate strokes, and an eye on the nailhead, 
pound it firmly, until it is fixed in the desired 
spot, — then clinch it. If we wish truths to 
lodge in a child's soul, we need not expect that 
some haphazard chance of life will place them 
there, nor suppose that they will become fixed 
as we wish them to, without a definite purpose 
on our part, and persistent effort. 

Still less would we expect a garden to grow, 



10 THE SPIBITUAL CABE OF A CHILD 

if, on looking over a tract of ground, we should 
say : I shall have roses and apples there by 
and by. Not that I have ever planted rose- 
slips there, or set out fruit-trees, — I do not 
believe in forcing a crop that way, — but in 
a few years roses and fruit-trees will probably 
spring up there of their own accord. 

We cannot make our children spiritual, any 
more than we can make a garden grow. But 
we know that if we will plant good seed in 
good soil, and rightly tend it, by and by the 
desired plant will appear. Life springs, though 
we know not how. 

But what shall we plant? What spiritual 
flowers and fruit do we wish to cultivate in 
our children? What shall we sow broadcast, 
to be quickened of God ? Let us decide, first 
of all, whether or not we wish them to bring 
forth the fruits of a distinctively Christian life. 
Let us next ask ourselves whether we are will- 
ing to put into the spiritual care of our chil- 
dren the time, strength, money, love, and pa- 
tience necessary. If so, let each of us now 
take a sheet of paper and mark down on it 
the traits that we sincerely wish to develop 



THE SPIRITUAL CABE OF A CHILD 11 

in our children. On another sheet let us mark 
the traits that our children now actually have 
through their heredity, temperament, or present 
environment. 

We shall at once perceive that childhood is 
a thing of beginnings, of promise; but a social 
work second only to the creation of life is now 
before the conscientious parent, upon whom is 
laid the task of fas4iioning a new generation, 
and preserving greatness, heroism, and ideal- 
ism for the race. Only God can bring up a 
child. Nothing will bridge the abyss of the 
actual and the ideal, except faith, hope, love, 
work, and the immediate help of divinity. 

We also find that we must fling ourselves 
into the task. Apathy never awakens enthu- 
siasm. Prayer, not inattention, wins. And 
yet what thunders at us, even above the gen- 
eral roar of American life, is that parents who 
apparently wish to guide their child aright, 
themselves chase every phantom of the world, 
and surround themselves with influences antago- 
nistic to a faithful Christian life. Later, these 
very parents mourn that their children do not 
display the inspirational traits of humanity. 



12 THE SPIBITUAL CABE OF A CHILD 

Truth, courage, justice, patience, magnanim- 
ity, industry, loyalty, mental vigor, talent, 
energy, mercy, honesty, chastity, earnestness, 
decision of character, chivalry, tenderness, sym- 
pathy, moral heroism, filial and conjugal affec- 
tion, reverence, and spiritual intensity, all have 
a reason for being, and a means of develop- 
ment. Why do we not foster these lovely 
qualities, if we really desire that they should 
live and grow ? 

Next, let us set down on another sheet of 
paper an outline of the religious education that 
we propose to give our children before they 
are, say, ten years of age. Ought not children 
of ten to have a general familiarity with the 
whole Bible, a connected idea of Biblical his- 
tory, and of its heroic figures, and a memoriter 
knowledge of the Ten Commandments, many 
passages of Scripture, the Creed, and the 
church catechism ? Ought not such children 
to have read and enjoyed " Pilgrim's Progress," 
and other sterling religious books ? Ought 
they not to know many of the great hymns 
of the church, — words and music ? Ought 
they not to know the outline of the lives of 



THE SPIRITUAL CARE OF A CHILD 13 

at least ten or twelve of the church reform- 
ers, and to have an idea of the way in which 
Christendom is organized in denominations 
and religious societies? Ought they not to 
be familiar with the lives of ten or twelve of 
the historic missionaries of the church, know- 
ing the country in which they labored, the 
class of people chiefly reached, and the main 
things which civilization owes to their work? 
Ought they not to know something of the 
pictures, sculpture, and architecture of great 
religious art ? Ought they not to have an idea 
of the long struggle for religious liberty and 
human freedom ? 

Any teaching of doctrine should be as clear 
as the teaching of a lesson in history or mathe- 
matics. The study of religious truth should 
never be made easy or maudlin, but should 
demand thought and attention. Ought not 
children of ten to understand something of the 
meaning of law, and the way in which law 
reaches from the nursery to the moral order 
of the universe ? Ought they not to have an 
idea of , God, of the Trinity, of the life and 
work of Christ, of the influence of the Spirit, 



14 THE 8PIBITUAL CABE OF A CHILD 

and of the meaning of sin, of conversion, of 
providence, of duty, of divine sovereignty, of 
personal accountability, and of immortality? 
Ought they not to have been thrilled by the 
heroic Christian virtues? Ought they not to 
have been drilled in the showing forth of prac- 
tical piety, — in the self-restraint, unselfish- 
ness, courage and fidelity of the Christian 
life? Above all, ought not a child of this 
age to be definitely and positively a Christian 
child? 

Where do we get our idea that all human 
beings should be dragged from waywardness 
to God? If they ever get away from Him, 
they must return; but the natural process 
should be an unfolding of the spirit Godward, 
and there are children who have never had a 
moment's consciousness of alienation. From 
Him they came, and His they are. 

The Sabbath-school, however helpful, can- 
not, in an hour a week, produce this type of 
education. School systems cannot at present 
carry it out. Its foundations must be laid in 
the home, and it must be maintained with daily 
vigor and thoroughness. It is a brave person 



THE SPIRITUAL CABE OF A CHILD 15 

who will dare give any suggestions, but one or 
two simple points may perhaps be noted. 

First, the Sabbath must be at once removed 
from worldly care, business, and mere idleness 
or pleasure. Stately and supreme, it rises 
above earth's turmoil, and calls to reverence 
and devotion. If those splendid hours that 
are meant to be the soul's best heritage are 
given to worship and the spiritual care of child- 
hood, there will come a blessing that will be 
not only domestic, but national. For much 
of the present-day hysterics and insanity are 
due, from a strictly medical point of view, to 
our lack of rest, insight, and repose. Seven- 
day business eats out nerve and brain. But 
inspiration is tonic, and a well-ordered Sabbath 
is the utmost refreshment of nature. 

Again, the Bible is the fundamental text- 
book. Modern education wastes a great deal 
of time. A child may be taught at home to 
read directly from the Bible (of course a Bible 
with pictures), and it may be made his earliest 
story-book. After the first few primer words 
have been learned, one of the simple Bible 
stories or parables may be read to a child, and 



16 THE SPIRITUAL CABE OF A CHILD 

he may then be allowed to pick out the words 
of the text, reading a very little at a time, 
and going over the same verses for some con- 
secutive days. By this method, a child learns 
to read with great rapidity. After drill in 
his Bible work, he can read any book, and all 
the time otherwise spent on less literature has 
been gained, with the additional point that he 
has learned to love the Bible, which, with its 
fascinating pictures, stories, and strangely beau- 
tiful wording, is his first introduction to the 
world of letters. And this earliest familiarity 
and affection he will not only never outgrow, 
but his style will be marked with vigor and 
fine imagery. 

"Pilgrim's Progress" may be made attractive 
by buying a large copy with good pictures, 
mounting it, if necessary, on a music-stand, 
and for the first year, with very young children, 
reading only as far as where the burden rolls off 
at the foot of the Cross. When he gets to be 
five or six years old, a child will beg for the 
rest of the story, and will read it, or wish it read 
to him, many times over, for, to an imaginative 
child, it is a story of endless interest. 



THE SPIRITUAL CABE OF A CHILD 17 

Again, family prayers will be maintained in 
every representative Christian home. They 
are highly educational, and may be made an 
intellectual delight. We err if we are too 
formal. Let us not think of family prayers as 
an unvarying formula, but as a progressive 
form of life. They should be vital and eager, 
adapted to the age and development of the 
child, and increasingly intellectual in outlook. 

With small children a simple hymn and 
reading are enough, using the Sunday-school 
lesson as the basis of the reading, letting the 
children themselves read it each morning dur- 
ing the week, and taking up each day one or 
two topics connected with it for explanation. 
At the close of prayers it does not hurt to 
play "Onward, Christian Soldiers," or some 
other stirring music, letting the children march 
around the house as a part of their devotions, 
and, if they wish, carrying a flag or a doll- 
baby! It is not irreverent to be happy, and 
in this way they associate prayers, not with 
a stiff exercise in which they must sit up 
and keep their feet still, but with life, music, 
energy, motion, and feel instinctively that in 



18 THE SPIRITUAL CAEE OF A CHILD 

this little service they are keyed to a bright 
and joyful day. 

As they grow older, this form of worship 
may gradually change and become a season of 
eager study. The Sunday-school lesson is 
used only once a week. Whole books of the 
Bible are undertaken and read through. 
Revelation has a special charm for children. 
We all know the story of the little boy who, 
when called by his mother to do an errand, 
asked to be let alone for a few moments, until 
he " finished binding Satan for a thousand 
years;" and the Angel with a Chain, the Beast, 
the White Horse, and the New Jerusalem hold 
the hearts of children with a spell. The 
Gospels, Isaiah, Ruth, many of the Epistles, 
Daniel, Jonah, Esther, Genesis and Exodus, 
and Joshua, all have a special appeal. Next in 
turn comes a love of the Psalms and the great 
imagery of Job. 

This period, — I am thinking of children 
between seven and ten, — is the time to intro- 
duce church history and missionary biography. 
If there is not time in the morning hour, it can 
be done at nightfall, in the precious "chil- 



THE SPIRITUAL CARE OF A CHILD 19 

dren's hour." Children from six years of age 
upward will follow the course of Livingstone 
on a map with the greatest eagerness. How 
they enjoy the animals he saw, and how the 
African names roll out! Paton and Moffat 
also interest children especially, and they 
love the life of Florence Nightingale, who 
began her career by nursing a shepherd's dog. 
Stanley, Duff, Eliot, Brainerd, Carey, Mackay, 
Patteson, Crowther, Martyn, Heber, Judson, 
John Williams, and Hannington are names that 
children delight to know, as well as the names 
of Knox, Calvin, Luther, Wesley, Fox, Melanc- 
thon, Tyndale, Margaret of Navarre, Huss, 
Admiral Coligny, Wishart, Coverdale, and 
others. In reading these heroic lives, and in 
talking of them, something great seizes upon 
the life of a child. Such books add to the 
moral fibre of the child, and are intensely 
stimulating intellectually, and yet they do not 
in any way lead to precocious thoughts or 
feelings. 

Cut out from the newspapers, also, incidents 
displaying human heroism, and speak of them 
at prayer time. Here and there, as opportunity 



20 THE SPIRITUAL CABE OF A CHILD 

offers, can be fitted in talks on great human 
subjects. Such topics ought never to be forced 
in a cold way, but should come up naturally 
from some question, event, or stray bit of 
reading. Little talks on honor, on chivalry, 
friendship, love, honesty, devotion to parents, 
fidelity to conscience, may be woven in so 
gently that they are not felt to be didactic, 
and yet so firmly that the ideals inculcated 
become a part of the child's very being. 

Prayers should rise for every emergency of 
sorrow, illness, trial, temptation, and also in 
thanksgiving and gratitude for the usual joyful 
course of life. Let the child learn to look 
heavenward, not only for succor, but for inspi- 
ration. Do not be afraid to pray in a noble 
and majestic way. Throw imagination, sym- 
pathy, and idealism into family prayers. 
Nothing touches a child more deeply than to 
be thrilled by its own parent, and the hearth is 
an altar on which one's ultimate grandeur may 
be laid. 

And let the music at prayer time have a 
triumphant and martial ring. Prepare the 
child for victory. Let the young voices thun- 



THE SPIRITUAL CABE OF A CHILD 21 

der in the great processionals and paeans of 
the church. Occasionally a word can be said 
about the authorship of the words or music. 
Heber's hymns are much more interesting than 
indefinite stanzas. Buy some of the best ora- 
torios or other church music, and as various 
selections are rendered by the choir in the 
church, refer to them at home, and play some 
of the movements and anthems. In such and 
other ways, the constructive work of the spirit 
may be kept before the minds of children. 
Unconsciously they breathe the atmosphere of 
great work, and are led to resist inferior stand- 
ards. Thus the hour for devotion may be 
made the most ardent of the day. 

Choosing a school for a child is almost as 
difficult as choosing a place for its home. 
What is its atmosphere? — that spirit of 
loyalty, attention, discipline, social culture, 
intellectual energy, and spiritual aspiration 
which is a curious combination of the influence 
of the principal, the teachers, the students, 
the parents, the visitors, the community-stand- 
ards, and the memory of those who have once 
been teachers or pupils of the school. The 



22 THE SPIRITUAL CARE OF A CHILD 

school and the college never forget — something 
of every being remains. For years and gen- 
erations the human personality flits through 
corridor and hall. Going back to the city or 
the country schoolhouse, or to Farmington, 
Exeter, Andover, Groton, Eton, Rugby, Har- 
vard, Pennsylvania, Oxford, Gottingen, Welles- 
ley, Vassar, Williams, Yale, does one not still 
feel the presence, hear the voice, and kindle 
with the ardor of the absent and the dead? 
It is inheritance and tradition that are spirit- 
ually upbuilding in the school life of a child, 
as well as its immediate environment and com- 
rades. If we could lead ourselves to look, 
not for fashion or prestige, or cost or cheap- 
ness, or outward manners, furnishings, or wealth 
or style, but to the heart of the school, to its 
core of sincerity, and to the personality of its 
teachers who should glow with love and life, 
we would more readily fit our children into 
the larger ways of civilization, and the divine 
order of progress. The special value of the 
public schools is their wonderful fidelity to 
dreams of patriotism, truth, courage, individual 
merit, honesty, justice, and the public order. 



THE SPIBITUAL CABE OF A CHILD 23 

Choosing a church is more difficult yet. If 
our children are to be large-minded, their 
environment must be great. Oh, let us never, 
by any chance, get into a dull and dragging 
church! Let us pray for a pastor who shall be 
a man of fire. Let him kindle the hearts of 
our children into spiritual flame. May they, 
in their turn, join the noble company of 
prophets, martyrs, saints, and seers, and be of 
the great historic train of those who bear aloft 
the banner of the Cross, and aid in the world- 
conquest. May the congregation be orderly, 
reverent, and eager, and mutually helpful and 
friendly. May the cause of missions, and all 
other inspirational causes, be exalted, and the 
devoted energy of the whole church community 
be thrown into the most modern and pro- 
gressive forms of social service. 

For after all is said, the church is one of the 
most potent forces to mould the hearts and 
minds of men. Silently, tenderly, persuasively, 
it lays its touch upon the spirit, and I often 
wonder if we ever rise above our early pastor's 
dreams. In many a child's heart he sets forever 
the standards of aspiration and achievement. 



24 THE SPIEITUAL CABE OF A CHILD 

As to the companions of a child, we can 
gather, but we cannot choose. Each child 
knows its own mate, and no force nor entreaty- 
can change the immutable decree of nature. 
But we can form a circle that is rational and 
suitable, not forgetting that sometimes the 
most golden hearts and manners are within 
very simple doorways. Perhaps the most 
interesting phase of a child's life is when the 
little heart begins to move out into the world, 
and, among many companions, to pick out the 
special little friend to love. Here no guidance 
is too gentle, nor any care too great. Simpli- 
city is the great safeguard. The sophisti- 
cated child is always in danger, — the one who 
knows too early the untruths, the vanities, and 
perfidies of life, — but a fresh and unspoilt spirit 
instinctively clings to comradeship of purity 
and truth. 

And in that little child-world, with its boyish 
fights, and its hot, girlish quarrels, there is in 
miniature all the rest of life. Now is the time 
to train for real romance, — to accept the 
affections as a growing force, to receive confi- 
dences, and to lead the fast-developing nature 



THE SPIBITUAL CAEE OF A CHILD 25 

into great ideals of human love, of honor, of 
conjugal fidelity, of social stability, and of 
parental responsibility. 

When the hour of romance comes to a boy 
or girl, it is possible to turn the life into all 
dark ways of frivolity, sentimentality, caprice, 
passion, bitterness, and despair, or to lead it 
gently and truly out into a world of splendor 
and of power. Even the hurts of love can 
teach, and nothing is more educative than a 
regal love-affair. We have mastered one of 
the most difficult problems if we can succeed 
in leading a child to look upon human love in 
its more spiritual aspects, — to think of romance 
in its more delicate beauty, — to dream of a 
mate who shall be a mate for the soul. Much 
of our deeper life is a search for this twin- 
spirit, and in eternity we shall know why. 

But a training for conjugal virtue lies deeper 
far than this, — in the implanting of traits of 
patience, forbearance, and a love of justice; 
in a refinement of spirit that abhors evil 
thoughts or ways; in that strict acceptance of 
duty which nowhere wins so little outward 
glory as in the conjugal estate, but which is 



26 THE SPIBITUAL CABE OF A CHILD 

the underlying girder of the social structure. 
Married life means the shouldering of care, and 
its happiness and tenderness are to be main- 
tained, not only by fidelity and courtesy, but 
also by carrying cheerfully the daily task. 

A vital peril in American life to-day is the 
lack of old-fashioned girlhood and boyhood. 
Our children must be sheltered, not only from 
the natural elements, such as storm and hail 
and snow, but from precocity, and from demor- 
alization of soul. Unreal novels, theatre-going, 
dancing parties, expensive tastes, and un- 
chaperoned roamings for young boys and girls 
are deadly in their injury to simplicity and 
innocence. Out-door sports, healthful compan- 
ionship by the home fireside, good books, simple 
tastes, and meetings under surroundings that 
are suitable and friendly must take the place 
of these exciting amusements, if we are to 
guard our children's youth and freshness. 

Shakespeare's heroines are not jaded, and 
Wordsworth's women are as dainty as a 
dream. Tennyson's pictures of girlhood are 
like a wild rose. Why should youth forfeit 
sweetness and every girlish grace ? Manhood 



THE SPIRITUAL CABE OF A CHILD 27 

and womanhood have a commanding virtue 
wholly lost in apish imitation. 

Ideals of human love and tenderness exist. 
There is a martial courage that is not afraid to 
meet the facts of life ; there is a sturdy energy 
that does not droop in discontent. Read the 
story of James and Helen Chalmers in New 
Guinea; of Robert and Mary Moffat in the 
wilds of Africa ; of Livingstone and his wife, 
who was Moffat's daughter; of John Halifax 
and the girlhood of his bride. Read " Sesame 
and Lilies," "Sonnets from the Portuguese," 
" The Princess," " The Miller's Wife," Jeremy 
Taylor's sermons on love and marriage; Emer- 
son's " Friendship," and Spenser's " Epitha- 
lamium," and fit the heart for life by biogra- 
phy, poetry, and an occasional really great 
novel, instead of by the gossip and catch-tale 
of the hour. 

The standards of love are rising every day. 
Despite the social vexation and unrest of the 
times, there has never been an age in which 
men and women so deeply loved each other, in 
which the chords of their talents and energies 
responded with so much sweetness to each 



28 THE SPIRITUAL CARE OF A CHILD 

other, or vibrated in such unison for world- 
welfare. To the children of these parents shall 
we not look for some of the great spiritual 
triumphs of the race ? Conceived in tender- 
ness, born to ideals and world-imagery, trained 
to social service, dedicated to aspiration and 
devotion, they are the flower of humanity, and, 
by God's help, shall in their day and generation 
reveal a larger world to man. 

Economics has two sides. We may firmly 
teach a child that he must be business-like and 
self-supporting, and yet greatly err in our 
training if we do not also teach him that each 
human being is socially responsible, not only 
for the honest earning of his income and the 
well-balanced general investment and expendi- 
ture of it, but also for the social burden of 
poverty, ignorance, or misfortune, which must 
forever be carried, and as far as possible 
diminished, by those of normal income-earning 
power. Giving is a straight duty, but the 
giving should also be conducted in a scientific 
way. 

All training should provide for growth and 
adventure. Life is a set-to. Civilization, from 



THE SPIRITUAL CARE OF A CHILD 29 

one point of view, is a higher sort of fisticuffs. 
There are hours when the soul dances like a 
savage, and there is a trace of prehistoric 
wildness in all brave spirits. A boy longs to 
feel life within him as well as to watch it 
from without, — craves danger, excitement, and 
new experiences of many kinds ; invents 
jungles and Indian-plays ; likes thrills and 
hair-raising things. Let him get his adven- 
tures in right channels, even at some danger. 
But for this, mothers need an elemental 
courage. Think of Hannington risking his 
neck as a boy on the cliffs for the eggs of 
sea-birds! Coley Patteson in early manhood 
climbed the Col de Geant, mounting on steps 
cut by a hatchet for forty or fifty feet up a 
sheer wall of ice, and descended the mountain 
on "the worst day ever known there," in a 
blinding storm. Later, a youth asks to know 
the sensations and emotions of the race; leaps 
into intensity and action; likes turmoils and 
difficulties; exults in primitive anger and re- 
sentment, as well as in the loftiest and most 
ennobling exaltation. This instinct lies at the 
root of many a lad's restlessness in his own 



30 THE SPIRITUAL CARE OF A CHILD 

home. It is not that he loves home less, but 
the universe more. Man is an itinerant and 
wayfaring animal. He hates to be housed or 
tied. He is convinced that manhood does not 
grow up in the parlor, or in any sort of cloister. 

Let us point out to our boys the starry and 
unstained stretches of human experience, 
wherein the soul of man may roam forever, 
in undying freedom and delight. Let us stir 
them to the great heroic actions of the race. 
There is a celestial ambition, and it is open to 
each new generation to achieve conquest and 
remembrance. By daring moral courage, by 
discovery, invention, insight into beauty, 
mastery of human problems, by the creation 
of new works of engineering and of art, by 
intellectual ideals, by political supremacy, by 
spiritual service, one may fling his life into 
adventurous and Godlike helpfulness and joy. 

If we invest a child with Christlikeness, we 
invest the world with a new degree of spiritual 
power. It is not an idle saying, that if a child 
be trained in the way in which he should go, 
when he is old, he will not depart from it. 
Psychology literally corroborates the thought. 



THE SPIRITUAL CARE OF A CHILD 31 

If he be taught the way of reverence, of prayer, 
faith, obedience, and intellectual and physical 
energy, he is the richer for all the years to 
come. The conquest of life is made easier for 
him; all the forces of habit, love, and will are 
turned in the way of the divine purpose. 

Food, air, sunshine, influence, teaching and 
surroundings, pass into the life of a child. 
Far back of his nourishment in infancy is the 
inheritance which he has from ancestry and 
tradition, — that reverberation of decision and 
spirituality which comes from generations who 
have walked with God. Of all family enthusi- 
asms, and pride of genealogy, this is perhaps the 
most pardonable, — the delight there is to find, 
on looking back over a long line of forefathers, 
that straight down the line there have been rep- 
resentative men and women of faith and power. 

And one of the noble ideals of man has been 
to found a great house which should carry down, 
from generation to generation, certain family 
traits and powers ; an hereditary line of intel- 
lectual and political ascendancy and social 
prestige, with characteristic manners and tradi- 
tions. Far down the line of our posterity 



32 THE SPIRITUAL CARE OF A CHILD 

there shall really be renewed images of our 
own selves: the likeness goes eternally on* 

The encouragement of all educational work 
is to perceive that in the long years of history 
extraordinary things have been accomplished. 
The daily process of training in virtue and 
culture seems laborious, but effort is cumu- 
lative. By slow accretions of knowledge, 
character, and aspiration, whole races have 
risen from savagery or barbarism, and genera- 
tions of children have grown up to praise God 
and to serve Him. This lends enthusiasm to 
one's endeavor. It is our responsibility to have 
large thoughts for humanity, and to work with 
fidelity and energy. The very process of 
spiritual evolution shall carry our work far 
beyond our own imagination; it may stamp 
history itself with the image of our dreams. 



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